Wednesday, April 8, 2009

Just a wonderment

Ok, so maybe I am not religious. However to my self described credit, I am respectful of the religious choices of others and am tolerant, perhaps too much. Sounds like I have the makings of a good Anglican.

I am also a respecter of tradition, perhaps one of the few left. Allow me to demonstrate.

For Christians and Jews this is a sacred week. Passover, Holy Thursday, Good Friday, Easter, all packed into a short period of time. For Believers this is the most important week of the year.

So why (OK I know why, let me rephrase this). How is it that this week also hosts The Masters, The New York Auto Show, countless baseball and sporting events all without outrage?

Anyone else remember when Sandy Koufax wouldn't pitch his turn in the World Series since it fell on Yom Kippur? Can you imagine a pro athlete with such convictions today?

Have we gone so soft? Have the greens keeper taken over the television world? My television will be off, and I'll be with family this weekend. I usually am anyway.

When I was a child we would all gather and go to the cemetary Easter Weekend. We would do our spring clean up of the family plot and plant new spring flowers around our plot. We would place Lilies on the Headstones and have a picnic in the cemetary. I don't know many people who still do this. My dad and I made a trek to the family plot several years ago and it is not the same.

Since I'm off this week for spring break, I take the opportunity to visit my mom's grave. No picnic, but I trim the weeping cherry and put another ornament on it. It's a solitary chore by choice, but I take a great deal of comfort in seeing other ornaments on the tree, evidence of others who loved my mom having visited. Usually they are single dangly earrings, or other little doodads she would have loved. Ours was complicated relationship, but this ritual apparently comforts more than just me. It suits the time of year. Toad- thanks for the observation.

All we did during Holy Week was run to the church to change the altar cloths (my mom was the one woman altar guild). I think the moving target dates of Easter/Passover make it more likely that things will continue to be scheduled on that day. I know the Masters falls on Easter every so often, although it's been quite a few years since the last time.

Our minister says something every year on Palm Sunday when he encourages everyone to take advantage of all the Holy Week activities. He says that we'll miss the real joy of Easter if we jump straight from the celebration of the arrival of Jesus in Jerusalem to Easter morning without experiencing the rest of it--the last supper, the darkness of Good Friday--he says that it's almost dishonest. I have to agree.

On a different note, as an acolyte coordinator, this is one of those years where Easter falls during spring break. We had an awful time finding kids in town to serve on Palm Sunday, Maundy Thursday....although most do make it back by Easter.